


I Will Go No More A-Roving

by kittydesade



Category: Plunkett and Macleane (1999)
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 02:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the interrupted hanging, after a long sea voyage, Plunkett, Macleane, and Rebecca find themselves in America.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Go No More A-Roving

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Joylee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joylee/gifts).



"Well, this isn't the new world at all."

Macleane stood at the bow of the ship as the captain settled it into the berth, the sailors uncoiling their ropes and securing the lines and whatnot. He stretched out his arms over the rail as though he owned the place. Behind him, Plunkett rolled his eyes.

"It's a port city. Same all the world." He looked over his shoulder at the woman coming up last. "That everything?"

Rebecca nodded. "Everything packed and stowed, except what we've left to pay for my ticket." To her credit, she didn't look a bit fussed at leaving behind a portion of her jewelry, and she hadn't complained the whole journey to America at leaving her dresses, her friends, her large house and comfortable bedroom behind.

Then again, she hadn't been likely to keep much of it, and the alternative was finding another protector with Chance and her uncle both dead. Plunkett could well understand her agreeing to travel and maybe find better fortunes elsewhere, under those circumstances. Still, she wasn't as useless as many of the rest of the nobility. Macleane complained more than she did, about the rocking of the ship, the meals.

"Right. Let's go find lodgings for a few days. Make our plans." The captain laid down the gangplank, and Plunkett started down. Rebecca followed, Macleane coming a beat or two after them as he realized they were heading into the city without him.

"Do you really think we're going to find lodgings this close to the port?" he called, running to catch up. Rebecca threw him a dirty look when he did so; he hadn't had to run much to catch up with both of them staggering under the weight of their combined goods. Macleane looked suitably sheepish, ducked his head and took the larger of the two bags she carried.

Plunkett snickered, resumed his glancing up and down the streets. "Likely to be a lot of inns, boarding houses here, take in travelers. We'll find some place with four walls and a roof for a couple days, get our bearings, then we can move out to the country for some place more..." He looked after Macleane, who was only half-listening by now, eyes forward on the horizon and some distant place full of bright and glittering things to catch his attention. "...shiny. More shiny."

"What was that?"

Plunkett sighed. "Nothing."

  


* * *

  


The Compass Rose looked clean, well scrubbed and swept when they went in. Plunkett couldn't say why it caught his eye in the first place, except it had two small stands of roses out front and smelled like it had a herb garden in the back. It came at the end of a long row of offices and taverns and houses, with a stable following that seemed to belong to the same folk since it curved a small yard around to the back big enough for at least one, maybe two horses to turn around properly.

"This?" Macleane didn't see much to recommend the place, looking up at the narrow building, the likelihood of small rooms. "This is your choice?"

"If they have room, yeah," Plunkett shot him a dirty look and stomped on in, dropping his bags with the other two by the door. Rebecca put her hand on Macleane's arm to stop him following.

The place was longer than it looked from the front, narrow and long. The front room had a fireplace on the stable side, a few tables, then a long stretch of corridor and kitchen, then what he guessed was a back room with offices. A small woman with her hair half undone already and a flour covered apron was taking down chairs from the tables, setting up for the afternoon trade. Lady of the house, he guessed.

Plunkett cleared his throat. "'scuse me, miss?"

"You're a bit early," she didn't look around, concentrating on reaching up to turn the chair around so she could move it down from the table. Too short for that, he decided, or she was feeling poorly. The chair almost tipped over onto her and without thinking, he stepped up behind her to catch it by the legs over her head. "Thank you," now she did look at him, over her shoulder, a tired and grateful smile. "I'm sorry, you're a bit early, we've only just got the bread out, but there's butter and a bit of cheese left over, drippings I could put on from last night..."

"Not here for breakfast," he shook his head, helping her get the rest of the chairs down. Well made, too. "Came to see about a room? Just in off the port..."

"From England, by the sound of your voice," she smiled more readily now. "Thank you. Again. We've rooms available, street or garden view, as your preference. Garden's a bit more. Can feed you for a bit more as well, or you can take your meals as you want them..."

"Though if you wait too long, all the roast'll be eaten, and Betty makes the best roast and beans you'll find in all of Boston."

Plunkett's head jerked up, one hand twitching towards his knife for a second before the booming voice coming down the hall resolved itself into a tall, older figure. With such a resemblance to the woman he'd been helping that he had to be her father, he decided. "Sir," he nodded, unable to make a better reply than that.

"He'll be staying here, if he likes the room," Betty told the man, glancing back at Plunkett with a brief smile. "So don't push it, father, I'm sure he'll have plenty of chances to try the food."

There, that settled it. Family establishment, good and clean, it'd do for a few days while they discussed where to go from here. "There's three of us," he added. "Myself, my friend, and his wife." They'd already decided that Rebecca would pass as being Macleane's wife, simpler that way than to explain things out and it gave them some kind of respectability. He could behave himself, when required, but two gentlemen traveling alone carried a different sort of image than two gentlemen and a woman.

The older man nodded, hugged his daughter and stomped towards the door. "I'm off to the docks, you'll send Thomas along with supper, I expect?"

"And when have I not? Get on with you, father, I'll send Thomas along when he's back from the market."

Somehow the room seemed smaller when the father went out of it, the whole structure did. Or bigger, he wasn't sure which. He followed the man out, gestured for Macleane and Rebecca to come in, then went back to where Betty had come around behind the sideboard and pulled out an account book to take their names.

"Er, Plunkett," he fished around inside his coat for the purse, which he had adamantly refused to let Macleane carry. "Will, that is. That's Jamie Macleane and Rebecca..." he stopped himself just in time from giving her full name, as she was married now. Betty had neat handwriting, and all the books looked to be in her delicate script. "Should be staying only three nights."

"All right, then," she smiled up at him, then over at the man descending the stairs. "You've come at a good time, everyone's out for the fishing and won't be back for a little while, that's when we're empty."

"Not so empty as all that," said the man, who Plunkett guessed was Thomas, Betty's husband. He came up and looked over the entries in the books, looked at the three of them. "Well, and thank you for keeping my Betty company while we're out on the boats," he grinned. "You're in good hands."

"No doubt," Plunkett smiled back, more teeth and less smile but the enthusiasm and good cheer of everyone had him somewhat off balance. The whole thing had the feel of old accustomed excitement, which made sense since half the city lived on the backs of the fishing boats and cargo trawlers, but it was all too cheerful and bright for him.

Betty put the books back while her husband reached into a small locked cabinet for the keys. "Your rooms are up top, I'll help you with your things if you like, there's time for that before I go..." he looked over at his wife.

"While I wrap up your supper, yes, I know, you'll have cold meat and cheese and real bread instead of those rocks you call ship's rations. Get off with you, then."

Macleane threw Plunkett a look of poorly disguised glee as they followed Thomas up the stairs. "Three days of this," he murmured, while Rebecca chatted with their host ahead of them. "Think you can manage?"

Plunkett furrowed his brow and gave Macleane his usual bemused stare, as always, when Macleane was being ridiculous. "Shut up and get up those stairs," he pointed. "Before I knock you down them."

  


* * *

  


The rooms were comfortable, at least. Plunkett had his all to himself, a smaller one towards the middle of the house while Rebecca and Macleane took the garden view with the larger bed. Only fair. He stayed up in his room until suppertime, mending what was left of the clothes he'd brought and thinking over their options. Macleane he heard in the hallway pounding down the stairs at one point, followed by Rebecca's more delicate step. If they talked to their hostess and found some work in some city, or met someone with a relative needed some help further inland, so much the better.

Supper was as good as they said, too, but Plunkett looked around at the chattering bustle of the common room and decided Macleane could cope without his guidance, or if he did start up a game, Rebecca could reel him in. He trudged upstairs to bed.

In the middle of the night when something crashed and started raining down fury on the house, at first he thought it was Chance. Despite the man being dead and rotting in a shallow grave somewhere Plunkett sat bolt upright and reaching for his pistol within seconds of waking.

Macleane was in the hall, too, by the time he'd pulled on trousers. "What the hell is that?" he yelped, looking up and down the narrow corridor. Rebecca poked her head out of the doorway behind him.

"Thunder," Plunkett realized it as he said it. "Just a storm."

Hell of a storm, though. Thunder loud enough to wake them up, lightning bright enough through the small porthole window at the end of the hall to light the whole place in pale white for just a moment. Plunkett frowned.

"What?" Macleane blinked at him.

"What's that?"

Underneath the thunder and the rain pouring down on the rooftops he could hear the noise slowly building. Rebecca frowned, throwing on a house robe their hostess must have lent her and came out into the hall. "I hear it too." And in the next moment all three of them pounded down the stairs to see what was the matter. It sounded, Plunkett thought to himself, as though something were on fire somewhere. The same sort of general calamity that called everyone out of their beds and out at least to see what had happened, to gawk at it if not to participate. Or help.

The front door stood wide open. The tiny woman innkeeper stood in the center of it, white nightgown peeking out from the edges of a robe that looked like her husband or father's dressing gown.

"What the hell is she doing out there..." Macleane rapped out impatiently, and Plunkett waved a hand at him to shush him. His nerves were on fire. This felt familiar, too familiar somehow, even though he'd never been in an inn in the middle of a storm with some ghostly apparition of a woman in a doorway, whatever was happening.

He moved towards her, careful, taking his time on the approach. Not that he needed it. When he came up next to her he saw that her head was tilted towards the sky, as though she were listening to the storm.

"Rain's coming in," he told her, ignoring Rebecca and then Macleane coming up behind him. "Shut the door, yeah?"

"The ships," she said, and at first he thought he'd misunderstood or missed some words in all the noise. "The fleet. It's gone."

"What's going on?" Macleane yelped as somewhere in one of the buildings down the street a door slammed. People came pouring out of a building, down the road in front of them.

Plunkett knew. He took the woman by the shoulders and turned her to face him and he knew, and he knew that she knew it too. He remembered that look. He remembered his own eyes widening that way, the muscles around his mouth and along his jaw slackening, he remembered the way the blood fled his cheeks and left him cold. He remembered staring until his eyes dried out. "The storm." He didn't have to ask, they'd hit a couple of rough patches on the trip over and neither of those had been anything like this.

Betty nodded. Not seeing or even hearing him particularly well, acknowledging that he had spoken more than the words themselves. He wondered how she knew. But if everyone who lived by the docks was rushing towards the boats, there must be something to know. The direction of the wind. The strength of the wind, the storm, the lightning, something.

They'd have word more for certain in the morning, when folk could see. Unless someone had come by and told her already? He thought about asking, decided not to. Macleane fidgeted behind him; he'd have to explain it to the lad.

And Betty was standing in the doorway again, staring out at the gray and the wet. He took her by the shoulders and turned her inside, steering her towards the back room. "Get the door, would you?" he glanced over at his friend, jerked his head back where she'd been standing.

Rebecca took over by the time he'd gotten halfway through the corridor, which at least freed him to make something hot, whatever was there. A kettle, a tin of what smelled like tea, that'd do, he could busy himself with the fire. Macleane came around him and started slicing bread for toast, he guessed, since they'd be up a while longer.

"No, here, butter it... like that," Plunkett took the knife from him after he'd gotten the kettle situated over the coals. "While it's on the loaf. Easier to spread, and it doesn't go to crumbles."

Macleane nodded, followed suit. "What d'you think happened?" he murmured, not that Betty was in any danger of overhearing them. Rebecca kept up a somewhat constant whisper of conversation and Plunkett was sure the young woman didn't hear a word of it.

"Husband's dead," he muttered, terse, making up mugs of tea for everyone. "Father, too. Storm would have sunk most of the boats out there, knocked everyone overboard." That was more of a guess than a certainty, but it was what she feared.

Macleane looked at him, over his shoulder back at the women, then shook his head. If there were any words for the night's tragedy, he didn't have them either. He stacked up the slices of bread on a plate and went to take them back to the women, while Plunkett sat perched on a stool and stared into the coals until they heated water for tea. If Macleane remembered anything of what Plunkett had told him about himself, the small scraps that was, he didn't say anything.

  


* * *

  


Somehow, they got to sleep that night. At least Plunkett thought it was evening, it was hard to tell false dawn from true dawn when he dragged himself into his room and fell over onto the narrow bed.

The knock at the door came far too early in the morning; they'd found the wreckage of her family's boat. Her husband and her father both worked on it, but they hadn't found their bodies yet. Given the tempermental nature of the sea, no one expected to find them if they didn't turn up in the next few days.

Plunkett lurked on the stairs for that announcement. Halfway through he felt Macleane's hot breath on the back of his shoulder, knew Rebecca couldn't be far behind. They all kept quiet, for a mercy, as they listened to Betty's friend tell her what had probably happened and how sorry he was, and that if there was anything she needed of course they would be there for her, and so on. Plunkett had his doubts about that. The ones who said they would help when the catastrophe first hit, when it was only polite and civil to do so, rarely became the ones who helped you when you were in desperate need and too stricken with emotion to know how to ask for it. He kept his peace until the friend was gone and the door was closed again, and then all three of them made a real racket coming down the stairs.

Betty was not in the common room, though, and the office door was shut. Which left them to look at each other helplessly.

"We can't leave now," Macleane said, drawing tired and resigned looks from both Rebecca and Plunkett. "Well, look at her! Is she in any condition to run an inn, especially ..." he trailed off, not having anything specific to underscore that with, but certain of his convictions. All Plunkett could think of was that streak of character that landed him in trouble attempting to rescue Rebecca in the first place, and seemed to extend to women in general by now.

"Especially when she's with child."

They both stared at her, Plunkett now well and truly distracted from rolling his eyes at Macleane. "H-how can you tell?" Macleane stammered, his mind stuttering to a very visible stop as he gaped at his beloved. "Is there some..."

"She told me. The other day, when we were talking. She also mentioned that it was too soon to be certain, but she sounded sure of herself. And a woman of her age knows her own body well enough to know when she is carrying."

Rebecca, Plunkett noted as he took a chair down so he could fall into it more conveniently, looked far too calm about this turn of events. Either that or she'd had more sleep than the both of them, she had gone to bed a little earlier. Not by much, though.

Macleane stumbled around a little longer before upending a chair himself, somewhat louder, and fell into it as well. "She won't be able to run this place with child."

Plunkett dropped his face into his hands, fingertips sliding up and down the middle of his forehead. No, of course she wouldn't be able to run this place while pregnant, not efficiently, anyway. Not with the number of guests he suspected came through here, and not if she had been running the inn with her husband and father. By herself, with her full physical capabilities, for short stretches of time was one thing.

"You know, we didn't have anything on in the west, anyway," Macleane pointed out. Plunkett dropped his face fully into his hands this time and let him babble. "We could stay here at least until she has some other help. Just by way of having lodgings and..."

The door behind them creaked open again. Macleane fell silent and everyone looked around at Betty, coming out with a smaller ledger in her hands. She ran her slender fingers over the lines of numbers, tallying something in her head. Money for the funeral, Plunkett realized. For the burial of two men, or at least for the placement of a marker in the likely event that they couldn't find a body.

He looked back over at his friend, who gestured with flapping hands at him. Go and talk to her. Plunkett rolled his eyes, made sure his face and bearing were calm, and went over to her. "Miss Betty..."

Her head jerked up, eyes wide, as though she hadn't known he was there until he intruded on her quiet world. "Master Plunkett..." she let out a shaky breath. "I'm sorry, I didn't have breakfast ready, I was just..."

Breakfast? Of all the things to be thinking about, or was she one of those types who needed to keep busy to avoid thinking. "That's all right, we managed. Come here, sit down..." He looked up at Macleane, who was already moving to pour another cup for Betty. Rebecca came over and sat next to her. "Mind if I...?" he gestured at the book.

She nodded, he thought, because she didn't know what else to do than by way of giving permission. He took it for permission anyway and looked at her accounts. Then he looked over at Rebecca.

"I'll stay with her, you two discuss what you need to discuss." Rebecca nodded, catching Macleane's attention and moving a plate of bread and butter over in front of them. Macleane set the steaming cup down by the plate and moved aside with Plunkett.

"Look..." he told the older man, and in the same tones he'd used a month or so ago when he'd tried to convince him to go after Rebecca. "If you still want to leave after we've talked to the aunt and uncle or whatever they are to her, we can. But you can't leave her like this. She's in no condition to..."

"All right," Plunkett shook his head, eyes shut tight against the outside world.

"...you can't just leave her what do you mean, all right?"

"All right, I said, all right..." he turned, started to pace and realized he couldn't without drawing the widow's attention, pushed a hand through his hair instead. And again, until it all stuck out at ends. "You're right, anyway, we didn't have anything on, and it's as good a place as any." But something about it didn't sit right with him. "Just until she gets back on her own two feet, mind. Then we're gone."

Macleane nodded, babbling something at him about how he wouldn't regret it or how he knew Plunkett would come through or some rot like that.

"If you say so," he muttered, turning over yet another chair and taking a seat at a different table. She kept neat books, he'd admit, and she did have some money saved against a lean season. Well, now she'd have to put it to use for a burial and a marker, if that was what she'd intended. He had no idea how much it would cost for such a thing, but it looked like enough. After that, though, she'd have to hire help. And he also had no idea how hard that would be.

Damn. They would be staying here another couple of weeks at the very least. He tried not to feel bad about that, it was a roof over their heads and food on the table if they combined their resources, and it was helping out a woman in need of it. It still sat poorly with Plunkett, made him restless, and a few minutes later he went back to the office to see how the place was run and to put the ledger back. Given that Betty was incapacitated with grief and Macleane was useless as far as organization was concerned, and he wasn't sure enough of Rebecca to let her take charge, it'd be up to him. Again.

  


* * *

  


The widow did seem a little better when they put it to her, after their three days were up. Rather, when Plunkett put it to her, sitting down opposite her at the table in the early hours of the morning while Rebecca and Macleane listened on the stairs. They were terrible at keeping concealed but at least if they didn't come down and look over he and the widow didn't have to acknowledge that they were listening.

"You see, we came over here in something of a hurry... Rebecca's uncle didn't take kindly to Macleane." Putting it mildly. "And we didn't have anything on to get by with, we were going to work our trade..."

Her eyebrows lifted a little at that, putting him on the defensive in an instant. "What trade might that be?"

"Used to have an apothecary shop," he rapped out. Leaving out the few years of highway banditry between that and this. "Turned it over before we left." Several years before they'd left. Never mind that.

He waited for her to question it and relaxed an inch or two when she only nodded, looking down at the table between them. "I have full control over this property," she added after a moment, defensive. It surprised him only a little; the older man had seemed like the sort to make sure there were no creditors to come after her in the event that anything happened to him or her husband. He didn't know about the husband in particular. The man reminded him, however briefly they'd met, of Macleane. "I could hire someone in."

"Do you know anyone?" Plunkett asked, genuinely curious if she did, if she'd had someone in mind. She met his eyes for a moment and then dropped her gaze again, shaking her head. "Well, we could use work. Macleane... well, he acts like a right twit, but he's capable, give him some direction. Rebecca's a quick hand at..."

Betty laughed, and it didn't sound amused. More like tired, strained, and on edge. "She's a lady," she pointed out. "A proper lady, and he's a rake, and you're..." she looked him up and down for a moment. "Sullen."

Plunkett couldn't decide whether to laugh or be indignant on Macleane's behalf, all of those things being true. Macleane took the decision away from him by thundering down the stairs and into the conversation. "It's true. I have been less than a gentleman at times, and I have done things that Plunkett considers... questionable. Even foolish."

"At least," he muttered, wondering where Macleane was going with this.

"But he's also saved my life. Twice. He brought me out of a life of debauchery, of the worst habits a gentleman could practice. And he has taught me what true honor and nobility of spirit..." Macleane's enthusiasm faded somewhat as both Betty and Plunkett looked at him like an actor who'd forgotten what sort of play he was in. "...are. And he has taken care of me through a great deal of trouble, pain, and aggravation I caused him. Despite all of that."

Plunkett snorted. "Aggravation's one way of putting it, yeah."

Betty looked over at Plunkett and even smiled a little; unlike the laugh, this one seemed real, even if it faded after a quick moment. Macleane fidgeted in place as Rebecca descended the stairs behind him, hovering in the doorway and waiting for her decision.

"All right," Betty said, finally, shaking her head. "All right. Against my better judgment, mind, you can stay. You'll help, we'll work out what tasks go to whom, and you can stay in the rooms you've taken. We'll see how it all turns up."

Macleane beamed over at Plunkett, who let out a tired breath. It was one thing to convince an exhausted, grieving widow of their good intentions and to let them stay in her home. Quite another thing to keep up being useful so as to not make her regret it. Well, he'd dragged Macleane into highway banditry, so maybe he owed him some indulgence in this, which wasn't the worst of situations anyway. They'd just have to wait out the first few days, maybe a week, and see how it went.

Plunkett didn't hold out too much hope, though. They'd been most of the way to America before it caught up with him that he didn't know what he meant to do when he got here, that he'd been living on scraps and vengeance for so long he had no idea who he even was anymore. Keeping Macleane and Rebecca from getting into trouble kept him occupied, at least. And now, there was their new landlady, too.

  


* * *

  


"Didn't I say this was a good idea?"

Plunkett pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. The words were clear enough but the sound of his voice was punctuated by grunting and panting. He suspected Macleane had never done this kind of manual labor before, and when they'd been playing at gentleman and servant he hadn't needed to. Now they were taking care of their lodgings themselves, and that meant taking care of the stable beasts. In Macleane's case he hadn't the skill to care for a horse, so Plunkett set him to shoveling shit and doling out portions of food.

And still Macleane thought this was a good idea. Six months ago he wouldn't have believed that Macleane would think anything that involved him shoveling shit in the yard was a good idea.

"You did, yeah," he frowned at the horse's hoof now balanced on his thigh, did his best with the pick to get the cobblestone chip out from near the frog without touching on that sensitive part. "Easy, there. Easy." Above his head the horse whickered, shifted its weight, sensing how close something sharp and hard was to something soft and tender.

Another scrape and the chip fell out into his hand. "There, now. Doesn't that feel better."

"Are you talking to me or the horse again?" Macleane called over, still cheerful.

"The horse." Plunkett chuckled. "Sure you're settling in all right?"

"I have to say, I never thought I would enjoy this as much as ..." The rest of that was lost as he ducked behind the stall, picked up again when he straightened. "...quite nicely, too."

"What was that?"

"I said, Rebecca seems to be settling in quite nicely, too." Macleane came out, wiping his hands on a rag that did little to clean anything, just moved the dirt around. "And I like to think I've improved somewhat."

Plunkett rocked back to his heels again, then came up with one hand on the horse's shoulder, reaching up to scratch beneath his mane. He might have realized it before but if he had he'd forgotten how much his good opinion meant to Macleane. Not that Macleane had cared much for his opinion when they were cavorting and robbing around England, but as they crossed over and since then he paid more and more heed to Plunkett's recommendations. It put him on the spot, made him uncomfortable and he spoke up less and less, but that didn't stop Macleane from looking at him for the least bit of approval, a nod or a softening expression.

"Suppose you have," he murmured, nodding. Then taking hold of the horse's bridle. "All right, back in you go."

Macleane followed him in; he had to admit, the young man was doing a decent job of keeping the stables tidy and keeping on the horse's feeding schedules. Plunkett ran a hand along their buckets anyway to make sure the water wasn't dry or scummy.

"I filled them this morning," Macleane put in.

"I know. Habit."

Macleane stepped back away from the stall; Plunkett turned the horse around and then backed out, closing the door behind him. The horse whickered and immediately started chewing on the hollow in the stall door, to which Plunkett responded with the same slap to the nose as always.

"Anyway, I think we're doing rather well at this. I don't hear any complaints from any of our tenants, Rebecca seems to get along well with Betty... You haven't been so critical," he pointed out, to a skeptical smirk from Plunkett. "And I have exactly the manners to be a gentleman of ..."

Now Plunkett turned on him. "To play the lord of the manor? Don't forget, we're Betty's tenants, not her landlords." It took so much of the wind out of Macleane's sails that he felt almost bad about it, but Macleane came dangerously close to rudeness and impetuousness, at least in his books. He tempered it at least with an explanation Macleane might take better. "And she might not appreciate you playing lord of the manor when her husband and her father aren't dead a year."

Macleane slumped and looked away. "You're right. Of course. I'm sorry."

They stood in silence for several breaths longer before Macleane slunk back into the house and, by the sound of it, went straight upstairs.

Plunkett leaned on the fence of the small paddock and sighed. He hadn't meant to bring the younger man down, but it was an area in which he had some sensitivity. Macleane stomped all over the house in his big boots, careless of the boots that had once walked where he blundered in. And he, Plunkett himself, saw it every time Betty looked up and to a corner where there was no one there, in the moments when she started to speak and corrected herself to saying nothing. When she tallied the books and her hand shook. When she struggled with the kitchen dishes by herself until one of the three of them moved to assist her. Two great shadows, one slightly taller and broader than the other, following her every move.

Behind his shoulder, a smaller shadow in a soft gray skirt with a gentle smile and a glow to her fine, pale hair. Big gray eyes and that, Plunkett thought savagely to himself, was more than enough of that. His palms were raw from digging into the fence. Before he went in he washed them off till they stung, so that no one would ask what he'd been doing, assuming they noticed in the first place.

  


* * *

  


They knew spring was coming because everything got wet. Dry clothes became a precious commodity in the house, mildew was constantly trying to creep past their guard, and Rebecca grew ever more terse with Macleane's complaints about soggy socks, soggy boots, and soggy food.

"Then cook it yourself," she snapped once, throwing down her baking apron in a puff of flour and stomping upstairs. Plunkett and Betty looked at each other, then at Macleane, who rose to his feet so fast the chair tipped over.

"I'd better..." He pointed upstairs. "Erm. That is..."

Plunkett stared at Macleane. Then started to gesture when he refused to stop fidgeting and go to his lady. About the time he took a breath to yell at him Macleane turned and scurried off. He sank back into his chair again, shaking his head.

Rebecca had retreated into their room, closing the door behind her without slamming it, going by the lack of such a noise. Macleane hovered outside the door, wondering if he should go in at all. But it seemed a choice between going back downstairs and getting yelled at for certain by Plunkett and going into the room and getting yelled at, possibly, by Rebecca. In the end he decided Plunkett frightened him more than she did.

She sat on the bed with her head bowed and her mass of lovely black ringlets over her face. Not the best of signs, but hardly the worst either, so he took it as permission to approach and sit on the floor beside her. "I'm sorry," he began. "I know I can be... difficult. At times. I don't mean to be, Plunkett says I get carried away..."

She whipped her head around to glare at him, lower lip thrust out in a pout he usually found quite adorable. "Plunkett has a greater grasp on the situation most times than you ever did."

It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that if she admired him so much she could go and sleep with him, but he didn't want that. He didn't know why her first comment stung so hard, either. "The situation isn't as bad as you're making out," he tried. "We're doing well here. The inn is doing well, we're turning over customers, we have a sterling reputation, you know. I've heard them talking at the docks..."

"We are not," she replied, softening her voice if not her tone. "Doing as well as all that. We haven't saved up nearly enough to go out to the border territories, not if we want to live comfortably. And we know nothing about scraping together a living out of the dirt and the trees and whatever else... Jamie." She sighed, and her hand felt warm and soft and tiny against his cheek. "It won't be like here."

"You're doing all right, you've done splendidly," he protested, also softly. "You've learned quickly, you've learned a lot from Betty, haven't you? Cooking and keeping a household..."

Rebecca winced. He couldn't blame her, not when they'd both come from at least the pretense and awareness of money in his case, real money in hers. Servants and other people to take care of the cleaning and the household, and now she'd learned how to do it all.

"I should apologize, really," Macleane swallowed. "For bringing you out here to America. I know you're not used to this. That you, erm..." He stopped when she pressed her fingertips to his lips, grateful not to have to keep reminding them both of what they'd given up, or lost, or both.

"It's all right," she told him. "I don't mind."

"Betty might," Plunkett said mildly from the doorway. "If you keep talking about running her household like that."

Both of them looked up and over at him, Rebecca with some shamefacedness and Macleane with confusion.

"It's not our house, either. It's her house. It's her home, we're still just guests here. Might do well to keep that in mind."

"Of course," Rebecca murmured, nodding and still with the grace of a lady. "I'm sorry."

"And the baby," he added, to Macleane's frown and wide-eyed gasp of shock. "She's coming due in the summer, not that that matters to either of you, I suppose."

Macleane wanted to protest that it wasn't that it didn't matter. It wasn't even that he didn't care, he just didn't see how the woman being with child was a subject relevant to his life, except that the child would be a part of the household. Rebecca looked more concerned, perhaps because babies were something a woman concerned herself with.

"Anyway, the door was open," Plunkett muttered, turned and went back downstairs.

  


* * *

  


"Do you think Betty's ready for this child?"

Plunkett and Rebecca had their arms full coming back from the market, and were going slow so as not to drop anything. It was a blessing, he thought, to have his arms full at all. He remembered when arms and belly were both empty and there was nothing to be done about any of it for days on end, till they'd begged enough coin for a loaf of bread from somewhere. Betty didn't seem to have ever known that kind of deprivation, and he was glad of that.

"Why would you think I know that?" he glanced at Rebecca, smiling wryly.

"Jamie said you..." and then she stopped right there as Plunkett's face slid to its usual distant-eyed stare. Macleane had mentioned he'd been married once and, no doubt, how that had ended.

"Yeah, I was," he took a breath, let it out, concentrated on not dropping the sack of flour or the potatoes or any of the other things. "Situation never came up for us."

"Oh." And that was the end of that part of the conversation.

The present was easier to talk about, so she didn't think she'd mortally offended him or some such nonsense. "Anyway, she seems capable. Don't suppose she's any more or less likely to have something unfortunate happen, and she's doing well for herself."

"And she has you to help her," Rebecca smiled. "She has all of us, but you especially, you're better at the practical things than Jamie and I haven't the experience."

He didn't quite know what to say to that. It sounded almost laughable, except it was for the most part true. "You're learning quick," he shrugged as best he could. "Shouldn't wonder Betty might want to turn a lot of her work over to you while she takes care of the baby."

"Does that mean you're not going to take a turn?" she asked, and now he did laugh.

"I might. You going to make your Jamie take a turn?" It still felt strange to hear her call him that, months and months later. He thought it might always sound strange. "He's not as bad as all that. He's learning to think before he speaks," he added, with a wry and long-suffering chuckle.

"Slowly," she agreed. "And better than if we'd stayed where we were, even without the threat of pursuit. We had a letter from Rochester, did he tell you?" He hadn't, and Plunkett shook his head. "It's not well. He's taken ill, some sort of brain fever or the pox, depending on how you read his letter, of course. He hides it well, but I think he's scared. I'm glad Jamie's away from that."

So was Plunkett, though it would take a feat of Herculean proportions to get him to admit it to Macleane's face in a way that didn't involve some form of sarcasm. He looked ahead to the inn's creaky old sign, thought about carving them a new one if he could find the material. "You know, for the first few months we were here he thought you would regret it," he said, somewhat absently. "Miss your fortunes, your jewels, all that. Take yourself on back to England."

"Well, we already said he was a bit silly, didn't we?"

Plunkett just looked at her and laughed, and after a second of maintaining the disingenuous face she joined in.

  


* * *

  


Of course, it would have to be in the middle of the night. When no one was rested and Betty had been out of sorts all day and Macleane pounded down the stairs to fetch water and back up again. And then down again when he realized that all of this was taking place in the back office and he needn't have slopped the water all that way at all.

"No point in washing any of this off, it's just..." Plunkett flapped his hands, indicating the mess of blood and sweat and fluids he didn't know the names for all over the floor, the small cot. Betty pressed her back and hands against the wall and panted, and the sound of her harsh breathing made everybody nervous. "Drink?" Plunkett bared some teeth, offering her a cup.

"Nngh," she replied, rolling her eyes at him and wheezing. When the wheezing stopped she seemed better able to speak. "Yes. Thank you."

"I'll go fetch the doctor..." Rebecca fled the room, leaving both men staring at each other helplessly.

Not that Plunkett could blame her, he wanted to run upstairs and pretend none of this was happening. And he knew he couldn't do that and live with himself. "Is there anything else we can do?" he asked, while her face turned white and red and all shades in between. Macleane fled the room at that point, but Plunkett could hear him stomping up and down in the common room. "Anything else..." Softer, this time, apparently childbirth involved periodic fits of panting, aching, and some sort of contortion beneath a woman's nightgown that he didn't dare think about.

Betty squinched her eyes shut, scrabbled against the wall until she found his hand and squeezed it.

"All right..." Either too frightened to speak or guarding every breath, and either way, he could interpret that gesture. "All right. I won't go anywhere."

It seemed like the whole night had passed before Rebecca returned with the doctor. He put on his spectacles and wiped the sweat from her body, all over and in places even Plunkett had to look away from. "All right there, mistress Betty. Let's see how you're doing."

She let go of his hand. Possibly she saw how green he looked or at least felt, or she was otherwise occupied with doing whatever the doctor told her. Easing down onto the cot, moving as though every muscle in her body hurt. His body hurt just watching her, tension knotting his back, but then the doctor caught him hovering behind the both of them and flapped a hand to shoo him out.

He didn't quite close the door behind him. Left it open a crack. Plunkett rubbed his arms as though to warm himself and then realized his hands were still coated in fluid. Macleane and Rebecca both gaped at him. He blinked once and turned and fled upstairs to wash his hands in the basin and change his shirt and try to recover something of his sanity.

It seemed to go on forever. He couldn't imagine how long the time stretched on for Betty. At first there were only complaints and groaning, and then came some kind of cry and Plunkett sat on the edge of his bed and clapped his hands over his ears so he couldn't tell what sort it was. Pain or effort or anger, it didn't matter, he didn't want to hear the woman scream. Macleane appeared in the doorway some time later. They looked at each other, hiding in their shared helplessness.

"Jamie..."

Somehow the sky had started to lighten, enough to cast a little more of a glow down the hall at least, and neither of them had noticed. Rebecca stood in the doorway, almost completely hidden by Macleane's body. She leaned around him, though. "Will."

Plunkett blinked.

"It's a boy. She's named him Thomas, after his father," Rebecca smiled. "I think she'd like it if you came and saw him."

Macleane turned immediately and started to head down, only to stop when he realized Plunkett wasn't right behind him. "Are you all right?"

Plunkett didn't have words for how not all right he was. Spun about, dizzy, he could stand and walk forward and nod at the question and pretend that, at least as far as Macleane was concerned, he was all right, but he wasn't. He couldn't speak past the swelling in his throat. The air was too chilled, his mouth too dry. He kept one hand on the wall as they walked down the stairs, slow enough that he didn't bounce off any doors or corners. It was one thing to watch Betty getting bigger, week by week, month by month, and it was quite another to know that there was a tiny young boy in the house where there hadn't been only hours before.

Rebecca took his hand and tugged him forward, encouraging. "You should come see them," she repeated.

Macleane was already talking up the merits of having a baby in the house to Plunkett. Or the merits of having them in the house with the baby to Betty, he didn't seem to be sure or to be able to stick to one topic entirely. "...need a man of the house to look up to, of course, teach him what is good and right, you couldn't find a more noble spirit than Plunkett, I assure you..."

Plunkett stared at him, flattery or not, with the look he usually reserved for when Macleane was being more of an overbearing twit than usual. Both women laughed, and then Plunkett was forced to take a step forward as Rebecca moved up next to her Jamie, elbowing him in the back as she went.

"He looks..." Healthy? Good? Plunkett didn't have the words for this. "He's a handsome boy," he settled on, only to look up and catch her smiling, exhausted and sweaty but somehow still full of light.

Behind him, he caught the dim sounds of Rebecca and Macleane laughing, though he couldn't for the life of him imagine why.


End file.
